{"id":37660,"date":"2025-07-04T09:04:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T09:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/37660\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T09:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T09:04:17","slug":"new-harris-county-task-force-will-target-internet-inequity-across-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/37660\/","title":{"rendered":"New Harris County task force will target internet inequity across communities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A countywide broadband task force is being developed to address what Harris County commissioners are calling a &#8220;digital divide.&#8221; Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said the initial baseline metrics that outline a need for the task force included the following Harris County statistics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>155,000 households lack high-speed internet.<\/li>\n<li>222,000 households rely only on smartphones for internet.<\/li>\n<li>171,000 households lost reliable internet after the national federal program, Affordable Connectivity, ended last June due to a lack of federal funding, according to the Federal Communications Commission.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The impact<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Garcia said the opportunity comes as the <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/bellaire-meyerland-west-university\/arts-entertainment\/2025\/06\/13\/countdown-begins-to-2026-fifa-world-cup-in-houston\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2026 FIFA World Cup<\/a> could challenge internet connectivity in the county.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our bandwidth will be very challenged during the time that thousands of new folks will be here for at least a couple of weeks,&#8221; Garcia said. &#8220;We need to make sure that we remain connected, that we&#8217;re able to handle anything, especially if an emergency may arise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Digging deeper<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/broadband.harriscountytx.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Universal Services<\/a>, Harris County&#8217;s information technology department, will develop the broadband task force with county department representation and other partners including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Communities with the lowest level of internet connectivity at the time of the motion<\/li>\n<li>Internet providers<\/li>\n<li>School districts throughout the county<\/li>\n<li>Nonprofits addressing the digital divide<\/li>\n<li>Workforce organizations<\/li>\n<li>Community colleges, public universities and technical schools<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe roadmap will evolve over time and is designed to guide countywide broadband expansion and with sustainable, flexible funding,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n<p><b>By the numbers<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/broadband.harriscountytx.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harris County\u2019s Broadband Office<\/a> started in November 2020 after commissioners at the time determined there was a greater need for more public internet, particularly for communities where both home internet and public internet were not readily available, according to the department\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>Since its inauguration, the county broadband office provided the county with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>More than 17,000 hotspots for students<\/li>\n<li>More than 100 free Wi-Fi locations<\/li>\n<li>More than 19 wireless data transmission sites<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On the other hand<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Precinct 3 Tom Ramsey asked why the county data presented to commissioners suggested that internet connectivity concerns weren&#8217;t a problem for the unincorporated areas in his precinct. Sindhu Menon, Universal Service&#8217;s chief information officer, said Precinct 3 had the highest number of teleworkers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is not one size fits all,&#8221; Menon said. &#8220;As you have seen in the report, it differs from precinct to precinct.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>What residents should know<\/b><\/p>\n<p>A map showcasing where Harris County\u2019s high-speed internet access locations are located can be found on the county website <a href=\"https:\/\/broadband.harriscountytx.gov\/Wi-Fi-Locations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Next steps<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The county\u2019s administration office and other broadband stakeholders will report back to commissioners by Oct. 16 on the new committee\u2019s structure, governing documents and bylaws.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A countywide broadband task force is being developed to address what Harris County commissioners are calling a &#8220;digital&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[30524,30525,30528,30527,712,158,67,132,30526,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-37660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-harris-county-commissioners","9":"tag-harris-county-high-speed-internet","10":"tag-harris-county-news","11":"tag-harris-county-office-of-broadband","12":"tag-internet","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-universal-services","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114794166136895532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}